Chapter 25 – Catalina #2
“He knew,” Jensen insists. “Dawson knows you're my doctor for the Series. He just wanted the opinion of this fancy ortho doc that works in town or some shit and happened to be at the ride tonight.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. I can’t even hear Davis’s name right now. Worst of all, I can’t hear about how he just happened to show up at the rodeo like it was a case of chance and not pure calculation.
Davis knew exactly what he was doing. He always does.
He heard I was the series doctor. He heard me when I shot him down today at the hospital for dinner and drinks.
Heard I’d be the one performing another high-profile operation in two days on Olivia.
And he couldn’t stand it—not being the hero.
Not here. Not there. So, he went behind my back and made sure he was seen.
Made sure I remembered him by going to one of my riders.
“Catalina, please believe me,” Jensen says, stepping closer but stopping himself. “I didn’t ask to see Doctor Davis. Dawson just dragged me in here without telling me why.”
“You should have stopped him the second you found out,” I say quietly. I’m so hurt I can’t even yell.
“Kitty—Doctor Alba—Please. Help me understand. I don’t see what the problem is. Why does it hurt to get another opinion?”
Of course he doesn’t see the problem.
I hold up a hand, my laugh hollower this time.
“If you don’t get it by now, you never will.
” I inhale slowly, grounding myself. “You think my problem with you is that you’re reckless.
Impulsive. That you don’t think about consequences, or the people who lie awake every night wondering if you’ll come back in one piece when you get on a bull. ”
I meet his gaze stronger.
“But that’s not all of it. I’ve come to terms with the fact that you don’t remember this.
But I do.” I draw in a sharp breath. “After performing your heart surgery, when you woke up, you looked me straight in my eyes and the first words you said to me were ‘Where’s my doctor? I want to shake his hand and thank the son-of-a-bitch.’”
His jaw clenches.
I don’t blame him for those comments. He doesn’t remember saying it. Most people don't realize what they're saying fresh out of anesthesia. But it wasn’t the first time someone had said something like that after I performed heart surgery on them. After I saved their life.
And every time they assume I’m not their doctor, it’s like a knife in my chest. A reopening of a wound.
And this brings me to the third thing that I hate most in life other than nose rings and tattoos. It's that people never assume I’m their doctor.
I’ve been mistaken for them all. An intern, a nurse, the freaking janitor is even more believable to them than the person who just saved their life when they were bleeding out after the worst trauma anyone can experience.
And it’s not because I don’t respect those positions—God knows they carry this entire broken healthcare system on their backs with no credit—it’s because of the bias underneath the assumption that I could never have been the one who performed their surgery simply because I’m a woman.
“No one ever looks at me—five-foot-three, brown skin, dark curls, woman—and thinks: cardiothoracic surgeon. No. I get the polite smile, the “Is the doctor coming soon?” And it grates every time. That it would be that surprising and out of the norm for the first assumption to be that I’m their doctor.
That I’m the one who’s going to fix them up. ”
And that’s exactly the transgression that Jensen provided to me the moment he opened his eyes after I was finished delicately reconstructing the heart that’s beating inside his chest. The transgression that I’ve looked past because I know, rationally, that he hadn’t meant to offend me in that way.
Because I know that most people don’t mean harm when they ask that question.
And the transgression that I ignored because I also really thought, in some foolish part of my mind, that he saw me as both his doctor to respect, and his friend who was becoming something more... maybe even someone he could love.
But now, seeing him consulting with Davis on an injury I’ve already thoroughly examined, treated and signed off on just reinforced what I feared all along.
That tiny insecurity inside of me that I hide that's really grown like a weed, with its tentacles wrapping around every part of my mind.
That even Jensen might not respect me as much as he says he does.
That even he might not trust my skills and experience.
That once again, Davis wins and I lose.
He took my pride. My relationship. My future. Shook my sense of safety and stomped on my heart. And now he’s taking Jensen from me before I've ever really had him.
“You’ll never understand it. You’ll never get the bias, the discrimination that I’ve experienced.
When surgeries are scheduled with me, patients are excited to see my credentials on paper until they meet me for pre-ops.
I could be the most awarded surgeon at the entire hospital in San Jose but find out I’m a female and they’re out.
Find out my skin is brown, and they’re cancelling or rescheduling for a lesser skilled surgeon.
It never ends, Jensen. Do you get what I’m saying now? ”
“Kitty, I’m—"
I shake my head. “You want advice from the doctor that Dawson brought in? Fine. Take it. Just don’t ask me about your shoulder again. Or anything, for that matter. I’ll be the series doctor for your emergencies only. Nothing more.”
“Cat, Doctor Alba, wait. Let's just talk.”
I shake my head again and turn away. Because fuck all of this.
I’ve worked too hard to be dragged back into this version of myself.
I thought Jensen was my friend. I thought he was someone I could trust—someone who respected me.
Hell, I thought he actually liked me. I thought he saw me.
Saw the work, the years, the nights spent grinding myself into exhaustion to earn every inch of where I stand.
I thought he understood what it took for me to get here.
The insecurities I swallowed. The fears I buried.
The constant pressure to be perfect because being good at what I do was never enough.
And yeah, I'm guessing he doesn’t know who Davis is to me. Maybe he doesn’t understand how personal this all is, how deeply it cuts since he was consulting with my ex-fiancé. But it wouldn’t have made much of a difference.
It could have been any other doctor he’d consulted instead of me, his doctor, and it still would’ve hurt. Because the message is the same: I’m not enough.
Now I realize something even worse: I’m still her.
That younger version of myself, standing in rooms full of men, trying to prove I belong and be seen.
I'm the little girl who wanted to make her parents so proud by showing she was smarter than everyone else.
Who craved the attention of the only people that she loved.
I'm highly trained. Overqualified. Capable. And still somehow, I’m reduced to my face, my body, my gender, while a less skilled man is chosen over me without a second thought.
I thought I’d outgrown this.
Turns out, it just found a new way to break me.